B Lighting a Fire under a How to ignite law librarians’ c

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Lighting a Fire under a
How to ignite law librarians’ c
B
y the next decade,
law librarians who
look to their right
and look to their left
may find the seats
next to them empty.
As the year 2015
approaches, a large
percentage of us will
be near retirement.
Nonetheless, we still
don’t have enough new
librarians entering the
profession to offset these
inevitable departures.
In fact, the U.S. Bureau
of Labor Statistics and
the American Library
Association project that
in less than 10 years,
library technicians and
library assistants’ job
growth will outpace the
number of professional
librarians’ positions.
24
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February 2006
© 2006 Ellie Slade
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a Bushel
s’ compensation, recruitment, and job satisfaction
If we want to reverse this trend and
attract future candidates to this career
path, we have to aggressively promote the
profession and our services through multifaceted public relations campaigns, active
recruiting, and targeted media efforts. In
short, now is the time to wage a war for our
career’s survival, services, and salaries.
Questioning Compensation
Unfortunately, many law librarians spend
their entire careers in a sluggish, pear-shaped
organizational structure that does not
remunerate them based on their educational
credentials, experience, and professional
capabilities. According to the 2003
AALL/Altman Weil Compensation Satisfaction
Survey, “83.8 percent of the survey participants
thought that current levels of compensation
in the law librarian profession may inhibit
some individuals from seeking the necessary
education to enter the profession.”
The survey’s results also revealed mixed
levels of salary satisfaction among the
participants. Nearly 65 percent of the
surveyed law librarians responded that they
thought “their salary was low relative to
other professionals with the same or similar
education level.” In addition, only “59.1
percent of the survey participants thought
that their compensation was ‘satisfactory.’”
The dissatisfaction and frustration some
librarians feel about their compensation
was articulated at the 2003 Annual
Meeting’s Compensation Session Program.
On one hand, the speakers stated that a high
percentage of the librarian participants in
the Altman Survey thought their salary was
“satisfactory,” even though they knew that
their compensation was much lower than
other similar professions and would deter
recruitment. On the other hand, the
speakers further explained that librarians’
supposed acceptance of substandard
compensation may be due to a chronic
psychological malady called “depressed
entitlement effect,” a term coined in a Yale
study in which female employees were found
to place a value on their compensation that
was 18 percent lower than men competing
for the same position.
Pink-Collar Profession
Within this limited mindset, it was
explained that law librarians, as part of
a female-dominated profession, might
wish they could be compensated with a
professional wage, but in fact harbored the
belief that they were not entitled to a better
salary due to low professional self-esteem and
a second-class notion of altruistic service.
This low professional self worth
historically arose from a traditionally femaledominant (or pink-collar) profession, where
librarians were perceived as clerical workers
and the physical custodians of books.
While many of the directorships of law
libraries were held by males before the
1970s and 1980s, the majority of librarian
staff members were female.
“The pink-collar self perception
librarians hold has been incubated and
perpetuated over generations, and as a
result many librarians have accepted and
integrated these negative beliefs as their
own,” says Katherine Rosin, librarian at
Shook Hardy Bacon LLP in Miami and
South Florida Association of Law Libraries
(SFALL) president. “To counteract this
long-entrenched negative view of the
profession, it is necessary for individuals
and library associations to spark interest in
the law library profession by promoting
value of our services, competencies, and
education to the legal profession, our
employers, and the public.”
Comparisons between law librarians’
salaries and other special librarians’
compensation is equally troubling and
perplexing. The 2003 AALL Biennial Salary
Survey showed that the mean salary for a law
librarian with a JD and/or MLS is $53,600.
Alternatively, the 2003 Special Libraries
Association Salary Survey’s mean salary for
a librarian with an MLS is $61,522. Thus,
when contrasting the two associations’ salary
surveys, the question becomes obvious: Why
do law librarians get paid less than special
librarians? Again the Altman/Weil Salary
Survey gives us a hint by stating that the
47.2 percent of the surveyed participants
believed that “the most significant barrier to
by Ellie Slade
increased compensation is [that] the law
profession fails to recognize the contribution
of law librarians to the organization.”
Butler v. Master
If the law profession’s failure to recognize
the value of librarians and library services
combines with the “quiet profession’s” socalled depressed entitlement effect, law
librarians may be permanently shelved in a
pink-collar nightmare, based on our silent
surrender to the status quo—unless critical
action is taken to reverse the situation. If the
public perception exists that we are clerical
workers, then naturally librarians will be
compensated as clerical workers.
This stereotypical pink-collar image,
endemic to teaching, nursing, and
librarianship, has been tied around our
ankles like old sand bags. It has severely
weighed down our ability to engage in
serious pay-equity discussions with our
employers, as well as tarnished our
professional image and standing. Nancy
Brown, law librarian at Wendel Rosen Black
Dean LLP in Oakland, notes the effect of
librarians’ weak professional self-image on
law-lib. “[When] we librarians assume a
chronic posture of service, like butlers,
people can mistake that for incompetence
or a soft center,” she writes. “Sometimes
patrons need to be reminded that we are the
stealthy Indian guides of the information
wilderness and we ought to be trusted and
listened to.” In other words, law librarians
ought to remove the butler’s towel from
their arm and instead assume the role of
the self-motivated master and manager of
legal information.
Unfortunately, the profession’s collective
clerical persona can influence corporate
managers and law firms to pick non-degreed
support staff, without a master’s or
sometimes even a bachelor’s degree, to
assume professional librarian jobs at a low
salary. Of course, companies and law firms
get a bad bargain in making such poor
hiring choices.
Other incarnations of diminished
hiring/promoting of professional law
librarian positions may include squeezing
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case of large institutions such as universities.”
Schwartz also believes that “in the future,
law firm librarian jobs will no longer exist,
but will shift and merge with information
technology disciplines, as well as knowledge
management areas.”
Narcissistic Bosses and
Substandard Salaries
full-time librarian positions into 35-hour,
part-time jobs without benefits or morphing
the head law firm librarian position into
three management positions (including
records and docketing) for one low-paid
librarian salary, without extra compensation,
under the guise of “information resource
manager.” Whenever a professional law
firm librarian position is diminished, or
expanded, it is incumbent upon us to
educate our managers, future employers,
and the legal community about the value
of our work and services.
Mark Estes, director of library services
at Holme Roberts Owen LLP and former
AALL president, comments about the need
for law firm librarians to quantify their
contribution to the firm. “Law librarians
research more efficiently than almost all
associates assigned to do research,” he says.
“But if it’s not recorded and reported, then
no one appreciates the contribution.”
Estes further adds, “Law librarians
must record their time for billable and
non-billable activity so that (1) their time
appears on the pre-bill and (2) activities can
be reported to management. The pre-bill
informs the billing partner of the librarian’s
role in servicing the client. The periodic
report to management informs the COO
or ED of the value-added activities of the
library. … Thus, it is imperative that
librarians always go beyond the basic request
to add value and surprise and delight the
requesting attorney,” he comments.
Although law school libraries will still
employ librarians for years to come, many
of us outside of academia may find that
our jobs have been eliminated because of
the lack of understanding regarding the
value of our services to our employers.
In fact, Deborah Schwarz, president and
CEO of Library Associates, a librarian
and information professional recruitment
agency, remarked recently that “traditional
librarians may cease to exist, except in the
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February 2006
Going further, the flip side of the lowsalaried and undervalued law librarian is
the narcissistic lawyer (or library director),
who holds court at the pinnacle of the
compensation pyramid. The negatively
entitled librarian and the narcissistic boss
have fused into a sticky, symbiotic
employment relationship, which has
institutionalized low wages in our profession
for years.
Under the auspices of power and
prestige, the narcissistic boss imagines that
he or she is entitled to special treatment
based upon his or her own imagined
brilliance, success, and power. This type
of manager often overworks his or her
employees and uses other people’s work
without giving individual recognition.
(For more information, read “Narcissistic
Entitlement Syndrome” by A. Harrison
Barnes, Esq., at www.bcgsearch.com/crc/
narcissistic_entitlement_syndrome.pdf.)
Unfortunately, some librarians, like
hostages or victims of the Stockholm
Syndrome, may support a narcissistic boss’
low library salary assignment in order to
survive in a power-stratified workplace.
But in reality, when law librarians do not
negotiate for professional wages, they
submit to a second-class salary structure
that imprisons the rest of us, as well as
future generations. For example, when a
prospective job applicant is offered a
ridiculously low salary, as in, “How does
$30,000 sound?” the law librarian
interviewee might counter-reply the low ball
offer with, “It sounds just okay, but $60,000
sounds a whole lot better.”
As the San Diego Area Law Libraries
(SANDALL) employment chairperson, I am
often asked to advertise librarian openings
that pay less than $40,000 and ask for a
master’s degree with substantial online
research expertise. This is below a starting
legal secretary’s salary in California, a
position that requires no prior experience
or a master’s degree. Another recent
employment trend I have observed are law
firms (or companies) seeking “competitive
intelligence” or “business research analyst”
applicants—that are really acting as online
librarians—for low salaries.
Here, employers seek job applicants
with all the sophisticated skills of an
experienced law or business librarian, but
the job description states that “candidates
need only have a bachelor’s degree with one
or two years of work experience.” When law
librarians accept these types of positions, the
ripple effect of negative entitlement, low
self-esteem, and the pink-collar nightmare
splashes over the entire profession. Again,
it perpetuates the public relations disaster
that law librarians are not professionals
who deserve (or need) to be compensated
based on their education, expertise, and
experience, but are “lawyers-light,” or
clerical workers.
Debra Denslaw, reference librarian at
the Indiana University School of Law
Library at Indianapolis, recommends that
“law librarians should lobby hard to be
recognized and compensated for the work
we actually do. We assist professors and law
students in substantive courses and with
their legal writing/research. We manage,
find, evaluate, compile, disseminate, and
promote information from an amazingly
diverse range of sources. We design Web sites
and intranets, as well as other online tools.
We manage people and responsibilities. ...
From a business perspective, what would it
cost to hire to meet all of these objectives?”
Law schools get quite a bargain in the
law librarian employee. This is especially
true when academic law libraries require
a JD and an MLS for a reference position.
These combined degrees may cost as
much as $150,000 in graduate school
tuitions. Unfortunately, academic reference
positions are not remunerated on a similar
compensation level as law professors, even
though these librarians may teach classes,
publish articles, and design Web sites.
Salary Negotiation
Regrettably, during the recent recession,
it has been an employer’s market, with
a surplus of over-qualified applicants.
Employers have gotten away with paying
lower salaries because people feel lucky
just to have a job. Because of this, some
applicants have accepted low salaries in
exchange for fringe benefits, such as health
insurance and retirement accounts or
pensions. Nonetheless, it is incumbent upon
law librarians when faced with low-salaried
job offers in a tight job market to negotiate
a fair compensation within their geographic
market. Although employers will typically
want to pay the lowest market price for a
new hire, law librarians should remember
that salary negotiation is a two-way street.
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When an applicant receives a job offer,
the burden is on the applicant to keep the
compensation conversation going, backed
up by at least one professional salary survey.
Besides salary surveys, a prospective law
librarian job candidate may want to
consider the ratio of an attorney’s (and/or
a law professor’s) salary to a librarian’s
salary within the organization. By utilizing
the American Lawyer’s 100 Survey, or
related law management newsletters, such
as the Institute of Management and
Administration (IOMA) or the Association
of American Law Schools (AALS)
publications, the investigative job applicant
can likely get a good approximation of these
salaries.
A note of caution: If the salary ratio
of an attorney to a law librarian seems
inordinately high, the law librarians should
realize that the compensation ratio of an
average CEO compared to an average
worker has spiraled up to a staggering 240
to one in 2005. If this exorbitant rate of
CEO salaries were to continue growing
exponentially, corporate salary schedules
might begin to look more like a Ponzi
scheme than a graduated pay scale.
Market, Market, Market
By better marketing law librarians’ services,
we can expect to receive greater recognition
from the legal profession in terms of
compensation. “Librarians need to move
from a warehouse mentality to a service
mentality,” says Al Podboy, director of
libraries at Baker Hostetler LLP in Ohio.
“While the library may no longer be the
central gathering space that it once was in
the firm, it can be a nexus for information.”
By advertising our services, we can
motivate our own membership, future
recruits, and employers to create, as well as
sustain, professional library positions based
on our education, experience, and expertise.
It is no longer acceptable for us to hide our
light under the legal profession’s bushel.
The legacy of our leadership is to pass the
torch on a well-lit career path that leads to
professional compensation, growth, and
recognition for future law librarians. ■
Ellie H. Slade (Eslade2@san.rr.com) is
reference law librarian at Escondido Public
Library and SANDALL president and
employment chairperson. She is also working
on a Human Resource Management
Certificate at the University of San Diego.
Katherine Rosin (KRosin@SHB.com),
librarian at Shook Hardy Bacon LLP in
Miami, also contributed to this article.
How to Raise the Law Librarian Profile
To offset the current trend toward low wages and recognition in the legal
profession, law librarians must embark on aggressive marketing and public
relations efforts.
• Publish local chapter salary surveys based on the geographic market,
educational, and experience rankings of members. Alternate the chapter survey
every two years with the AALL Biennial Salary Survey.
• Local AALL chapters should meet with local chapters of the Association
of Legal Administrators (ALA) to promote compensation information regarding
the profession. Nancy Adams’s article in the Fall 1999 issue of PLL Perspectives
addresses how NOCALL members met with the local ALA chapter regarding law
librarians’ compensation (www.aallnet.org/sis/pllsis/newslett/fall1999.pdf).
• Check with the AALL Economic Status of Law Librarianship Committee
(www.aallnet.org/committee/econ_status.asp#charge), which is dedicated to
studying compensation, marketing, and promotion of the profession. The
committee has a bibliography of resource materials related to compensation
issues. It will also develop a best practices strategy regarding the improvement
of law librarians’ compensation for each of the different AALL divisions, including
academic, private, government/court, corporate, and others.
• Give lunchtime presentations to law office managers that promote and market
law librarianship.
• Display the AALL “How to Hire a Law Librarian” resource guide at annual
conferences of legal administrators, legal technology conferences, colleges, and
state or county bar associations.
• Job seekers may also want to bring “How to Hire a Law Librarian” and AALL’s
“Core Competencies of Law Librarianship” when the applicant goes on a job
interview for a newly created position.
• At law firms, law librarians should provide a return on investment (ROI)
accountability analysis that includes detailed cost-recovery information,
including librarian billable and administrative hours, as well as budget cost
savings related to collection management.
• Keep an ongoing file of favorable articles that promote the profession to be
used by law firm librarians at review time or by the local AALL chapter
employment and public relations chairpersons.
• Conduct an internal library staff survey to evaluate overall job satisfaction to
retain staff.
• Stress the AALL law librarian core competencies and display them with other
AALL publications, such as the Law Librarians: Making Information Work,
PLL-SIS Resource Guide Series.
• Promote professional development, sponsor student scholarships, and give
library/law school credits for attendance at the Annual Meeting.
• Arrange for joint librarian associations professional meetings, such as
AALL and Special Libraries Association.
• Write articles in non-law library publications and provide information on
the law librarianship career path to college campus advisors.
• Train and speak to paralegals, legal secretaries, and related support staff
about library orientation and the value of the law library in your organization.
They can be some of your best allies and broadcasters.
• Create user-friendly law library brochures that advertise the law librarian’s
services, credentials, and collection.
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February 2006
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